


Skip the Last Dance For Me

by ApprenticedMagician



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Established Relationship, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Question Mark??, Raven!Neil, Secret Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-19
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-22 14:29:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17061503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician
Summary: If they were an ordinary couple they’d be playing hooky with only a hastily written note left behind:‘Be back whenever’or‘Don’t wait up’or, most daringly,‘We’ll find our own way back north.’Instead, their shared survival instincts kept them in place at the Winter Banquet, tied up in buttoned suits.But not for long. (aka: Nathaniel Wesninski and Jean Moreau play hooky)





	Skip the Last Dance For Me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nekojita](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nekojita/gifts).



> I wasn't sure what this was going to be and I'm not sure how well I've stuck to your prompt but I hope this cheers your day, nekojita. 💕

If they were an ordinary couple they’d be playing hooky with only a hastily written note left behind: ‘Be back whenever’ or ‘Don’t wait up’ or, most daringly, ‘We’ll find our own way back north.’ Instead, their shared survival instincts kept them in place at the Winter Banquet, tied up in buttoned suits – which were only barely better than the usual restraints they would choke on – playing any inane game they could get away with.

“Jeremy Knox, Christine McNeil, and Kevin.”

“Kill Kevin,” came the immediate response, which had Nathaniel hiding his laughter in his drink. Jean didn’t spend long thinking the rest over. “Marry Jeremy, bang Christine.”

“Unsurprising,” Nathaniel drawled. “You could stand to be less predictable, you know. Hold my interest.” He rolled his eyes to emphasize Jean’s unoriginality and hid his squirm as Jean pinched his behind. Which wasn't hard to do since the audience around them suddenly sprung into applause as Tetsuji presumably said something profound in his address.

It took a few seconds of listening for Nathaniel to realize the Raven’s Master was waxing poetic about the value of discipline and immediately contradicting himself by talking about a healthy balance between work and recreation. Not that Nathaniel truly believed Tetsuji - or any Moriyama - knew the definition of the word. If the dinner knives of their place settings had been any sharper, Nathaniel would have stuck one in his ribs to get out of hearing any more bullshit. As it was, they had appearances to maintain.

At least Jean wasn’t distracted by Tetsuji’s Very Important Speech. “And how would I do that?” Jean asked. “Should I have chosen to bang Kevin?”

“God, no,” Nathaniel gasped, already half in horror over the unstoppable mental image. “No, I thought Knox might be more your fuck-type. Clearly I expect too much of you.”

Jean cut him a shrewd look. “Sometimes you mix me up with Kevin more than I like.”

Nathaniel barked out another laugh he had to cover. “I resent that.” 

"How do you think I feel, being the substitution for your Exy boner?”

Ugh. “Ew, I do not have an Exy boner for Kevin.” It was a little too soon to have pictured two images that so compromised stick-up-his-ass Kevin. “That’s not even a thing.”

"No? Then how d’you explain Andrew Minyard?”

Much like the moments after seeing Minyard’s tape last season, Nathaniel couldn’t say a single word in his defense. Jean laughed at his gaping mouth and Nathaniel had to talk himself out of punching his boyfriend to make him stop – it was hardly Nathaniel’s fault that Minyard played like he was born to raise the art of goalkeeping to new heights.

“…It’s my turn in Fuck, Marry, Kill,” Nathaniel pouted, in what was not his smoothest recovery.

“Fine,” Jean agreed, very amicably, then listed, “Allison Reynolds, Mike Yung, Andrew Minyard.”

Fuck this guy.

“Kill Minyard,” he said, just to make a point, “Fuck Yung, and marry Reynolds because I’d kill to be filthy rich again. Specifically, I’d kill Andrew Minyard, whom I have zero interest in fucking by the way.”

Because Jean was a better person than Nathaniel was, he didn’t make a pointed comment about how Nathaniel almost always preferred bottoming anyway. Well. Not verbally, he didn’t. But the scan his eyes took of Neil’s suited figure said enough.

The buzz of his phone in his pant leg stole Nathaniel’s attention. He grinned at the message, and tugged discreetly twice on Jean’s suit cuff, their secret sign to follow the other after a short delay.

When Jean found him past the bathrooms outside the banquet hall, Nathaniel was waiting, pizza in hand. “Illicit goods,” he teased, shaking the box beneath Jean’s nose, the scent of his favourite Tuscan pizza wafting up like temptation, “we best make sure no one catches us.”

The short dash to another room was as thrilling as the breakaways neither Tetsuji nor Riko could stop Nathaniel from making. The time it took Nathaniel to pick the lock had their hearts pounding like the ticking of the final seconds in a losing game – but then the tumblers aligned, and they were in, and everything worrying fell away.

“Tah-dah,” Nathaniel teased, pleased with the healthy sparkle in his partner’s eyes. “Surprise number one.”

Jean looked impressed. “You have more?”

Nathaniel waggled his phone, which he had specially charged full up for tonight. “I might have downloaded the entirety of Jaws, just so we could pick up where we left off.”

It really was a shame that they had needed to cut their previous viewing short, but empty hotel rooms only came so often, even with away games.

“I don’t think we’ll have time to watch the whole thing,” Jean mused, eyes flickering to the phone’s percentage of battery life. “We'll be missed soon enough.”

"We’ll skip to the best parts,” Nathaniel promised.

A moment passed between them, wherein their locked eyes traded messages of gratitude and trust. Then Jean took a single stride into Nathaniel’s space and muttered, “Already there.”

Flattered, Nathaniel rewarded that with a dine-and-dash kiss, then pushed Jean to pick a corner to curl up in.

They kept the volume low so no one outside the room would hear the screams. By this time Tetsuji would be just wrapping up, and the dance would begin soon after, leaving them nearly an hour until the Ravens departed. Jean was right that they would be missed before that hour was up though, and they’d have to be strategic about reappearing.

All of that was distant knowledge though. As the movie played and Jean snorted at the poorly budgeted special effects, Nathaniel was struck dumb by the rarity of Jean’s true smile. It was gentle and bright and too much of both to ever be seen in the Raven’s Nest. Stares were normally Nathaniel’s tool of rebellion or defiance, but this was the first time in a long time he had felt enamoured with anything enough to simply stare for awe. Jean, stuffing his face with his favourite pizza and making little noises of content, didn’t seem to notice Nathaniel’s attention.

Faced with the enormity of Jean’s true happiness, Nathaniel felt compelled to say, “It won’t always be like this you know.”

Jean’s eyes pulled away from the screen. His expression was a little guarded now and Nathaniel kicked himself for trying to force a moment. But it was too late to take it back. Jean chewed carefully around his food and asked, “Won’t be like what?”

Nathaniel tried to think of the proper word. “Hidden, I guess. I’m promising we won’t always have to.”

Jean chastised him with a tilt of the head. “You know how I feel about promises you can’t keep, Nat.”

Nathaniel’s brow scrunched. “What makes you think I can’t?”

Jean said nothing, but he swallowed hard as though the food had gone tough in his mouth. Nathaniel couldn’t let this doubt stand, “There’ll be life after the Ravens, Jean.”

Jean spat out a disbelieving noise and turned his head away to shake it. “For you, yes. You –” he let Nathaniel interrupt him with a hand to his jaw, turned in to it and let it coax him back to Nathaniel’s worried eyes. “You have a family outside who wants you and your whole life is the Olympic Court anyway.” Sad fingers brushed the tattoo printed on Nathaniel’s cheek, like it was a mark that separated them. “There’s a reason you’re their number three, Nat. I’m just not valuable if I’m not playing.”

"That’s not true,” Nathaniel insisted, but a part of him knew that, in Moriyama calculations, it was. Jean didn’t flourish on the court like he did, like Kevin did. Any improvement he made was motivated by the primal instinct in him to survive and there was only so far that kind of pressure and desperation could take an athlete before they either cracked or peaked.

So he switched tactics, “Jean, you know that I’m in this with you, right?” A heavy pet, a firm caress through beautiful hair, and then another promise, as valued as a pearl, “If you wanted to run, I’d leave it all behind me to go with you.” It was horrible to look into Jean’s uneasy eyes and know he didn’t believe him.

“You’d be miserable,” Jean said, as though that was a perfectly good reason for him to suffer with Nathaniel in the Nest instead.

Cupping hands around this beloved face, Nathaniel prayed to every god that might be listening that Jean would see this truth and accept it in his heart, “Never, as long as I was with you.”

Then he kissed him to prove it.

Kissing Jean was always a cocktail mix of two opposing energies: the first was an aromatic whiff of gentle pressure, since they were always careful not to flaunt their relationship to the public media (or, even more dangerously, their manipulative teammates); the second was a kick of outrage and release that only few more intoxicating the longer they indulged - and they more they allowed themselves to forget to be discreet. It was like shaking a champagne bottle you weren't allowed to drink - one false move, one moment of idle inattention, and the sizzle would overflow.

The movie kept playing and the sharks kept swimming, but just for now the world was between their hands and the danger far away.


End file.
